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32

observat ions and opin ions about new or leans spr ing 2011

Illustration © M

ark Andresen

The BesTMardi Gras everI AM stAndIng In A 200,000 squAre footsuper WAl-MArt In sMyrnA, georgIA.

here it's called Tuesday.

Back home it's Carnival Day.

By Mark Andresen

f loa t ing

Illustration © Mark Andresen

i'm not surprised anymore by the contrast.

There's a huge, fat woman in Aisle Two pushing a basket with twins boys, the basket

is piled up in a mountain of High Fructose food. Her costume? I just don't want to

talk about it, except to say that whoever invented stretch tight pants in XXXL ought

to go to prison for crimes against humanity.

Leaving Aisle Two and entering Aisle Three, I find the liquor department. Luckily it's not Sunday—Georgia prohibits the sale on Sunday—and I can buy booze. Smirnoff Vodka is in a jumbo jug for $27.35.

The thin guy standing next to me is staring at the chilling beers as if he can hyponotize himself into drunkedness. His costume theme seems to be "Deliverance." Unless he'd just come out of the woods, I personally don't understand wearing olive/brown camoflage clothes in a supermarket...If you really wanted to be invisible, you'd wear yellow and red with type written all over your trousers. He picks Budweiser, the King of Beers. King Bud must be related to Rex and Momus, I guess. I have what I came for, so I head towards Checkout.

i grab a bottle and hold it like a Zulu Coconut.

Illustration © Mark Andresen

Nearing the front of the megastore, just about a quarter of a mile

ahead, I see two more colorful floats. The Endymion parade has

bottled water stacked in two carts. A pyramid of cases. The young

King and his Queen look happy as clams as they push those carts

to Checkout. I glance at their royal outfits: both black t-shirts with

an airbrushed portrait of Tony Montana from "Scarface" shooting

the machine gun and the words, "Say hello to my little friend"

emblazoned in red. This is just as strange as any Bourbon Street

ensemble: A pair of Tony and Tanya Montanas.

Finally the Zulu parade on Aisle Seven. The King is a dark

gentleman in a lime green jogging outfit, and he is smiling at me

as we pass each other. A quick nod and he's rolling down the

aisle. His shopping cart is empty except for a packet of cigars and

a cake. Something about that reminds me of Canal Street. So I

look over my shoulder and see that the whole store is just

one big surreal carnival. Aisles of products jumping

into the slow procession of shopping carts....everyone

costumed and masked...everyone happy that

it's TUESDAY in Super Wal-Mart.

it's tuesdAy in super Wal-Mart

Since I grew up in Mobile, Mardi Gras is old hat.

by Jackson Hill

Unlike those thousands who come to New Orleans for their first

Carnival and decide they must move here immediately to live the

carousing life, my immigration to New Orleans had other causes.

Over there every child is informed at birth that Mobile’s Mardi

Gras cranked up before New Orleans was even founded. After the

War Between the States it was Mobile’s original wild man Joe Cain

who resurrected parading as a fictional Chickasaw Indian chief

Slacabamorinico to thumb his nose at the Union occupiers.

My earliest Fat Tuesday memory is as a 5-year-old

and spent serpentine streamers hoping that the empty pint bottle of 4 Roses

whiskey that I keep stepping on won’t shatter and slice my groping fingers.

Blindly I rummage in the debris for overlooked salt water taffy throws or the

occasional and quite special box of Cracker Jacks thrown by the raucous masked

men perilously rocking their floats rolling in jerky stops and starts through the

thick crowds around Mobile’s Bienville Square. My frantic quest for loot is

further hampered by stinging handfuls of close range confetti thrown in my left

ear by a snaggle toothed woman hollering “Happy Mardi Gras”, her hot breath

carrying the scent of recently imbibed 4 Roses.

Things are different there now. The festivities continue but confetti and

serpentine have been outlawed out of concern for over burdened sanitation

workers. Moon Pies eclipsed Cracker Jacks as the ubiquitous prize throw.

In fact, Moon Pie idolatry has become so pronounced that Mobile even has

a giant Moon Pie drop to ring in the New Year.

In a throwback to my Joe Cain roots, my New Orleans carnival

routine is to search out Indians with their feathered Wild Men

and ,just maybe, there’s a pint of 4 Roses in my hip pocket.

standing up to my knees in a deep drift of damp confetti

Photograph ©

Jackson Hill

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photograph © Jackson Hill

WAGES OF

de

AtH A

nd

tHe fAIr

yMy costume consisted of a high pointed cone hat,

covered in pink silk, draped with a sheer ecru veil

and secured with a long pale green ribbon beneath

my chin. Below I wore a pink satin strapless

prom dress that I found at Thrift City, only I had

massacred this dress so that the skirt rose in a

large padded poof around my waist. I also glued

a hundred or so lavender silk flower petals to the

dress so they flapped in the breeze as I walked.

(Never underestimate a girl with a glue gun.) Even

farther below I wore pink lace knickers, a shocking

red garter, pale pink and hot pink striped stockings,

and a pair of pink patent leather Converse high-top

sneakers. I was a riot of pink. Geoff said he’d never

be able to take me seriously again after seeing me

in this get-up. I consider that a small loss in the

scheme of things.

On Mardi Gras morning this Pink Fairy danced

with Death in front of St. Louis Cathedral. The

Tremé Brass Band blasted away, while the crazy

Christians marched up and down with their scary

signs and shouted, “The wages of sin are death!”

by Constance Adler

WAGES OF

photograph © Constance Adler

sIn

Hell

Hellfor the coMpany

photograph © Constance Adler

No matter. “Hell for the company,” I always say.

I like dancing with Death. He’s strong, confident and doesn’t care who’s looking.

Nor is he flustered by crazy Christians. Death smiles and waits. He is patient and compassionate. He may

shake your hand. The great leveler, he accepts everyone. This year, however, Death wore a Saints helmet just

to show where his true heart lies. That should explain how that “sudden death” coin toss in the Vikings game

went in our favor. Death hovers over Chance. Don’t kid yourself. Plus, Death loves the Saints because the Saints

embrace Death with gladness. Whatever they do, the Saints are willing to die in order to do it. Certainly, they

have died enough in the past to know what that means. Death rewards the Saints for entering into a conscious

relationship with the end of life by making them brave and therefore invincible. It is the awareness of Death

that pleases him. Death only wants to be recognized and appreciated. What any of us wants.

Death also has an appetite for Pink Fairies. He takes them with tea and toast in the morning...if he can catch

one before she transforms into a cloud of smoke.

today emily sent the following: #885, c. 1864 Our little Kinsmen — after Rain

In plenty may be seen,

A Pink and Pulpy multitude

The tepid Ground upon.

A needless life, it seemed to me

Until a little Bird

As to a Hospitality

Advanced and breakfasted.

As I of He, so God of Me

I pondered, may have judged,

And left the little Angle Worm

With Modesties enlarged

emily affects a faux innocence here. The poem seems like a harmless appreciation

of nature. Look closer. Emily says that we are great and useful to God in the same way that the worm is great

and useful to the bird—as food. He made us to be part of this cycle of eating and digesting, living, dying and

fertilizing the earth. Don’t kid yourself. This “modesties enlarged” is her grim joke. Modesty is a false pose.

Humans put themselves at the top of the food chain, in order to see themselves as closest to God.

Thank you, Emily, for the reminder that our soft pink flesh is no better and no different than the pulpy mass on

the ground. That we are all worm’s meat in the end. You are weird, Emily, and morbid. Still, I like you.

nIGhtby John Desplas

paraDeS

As a child, I used to pester my father, who definitely “preferred not to,” to take me

to the night parades during the carnival season. He would always grouse that “it’s

a school night,” and I would quickly counter, yeah, but I had already done all my

homework. And so we would catch the Canal Street streetcar, get off at the Joy Theatre

stop, and then briskly make our way to the second hundred block of St. Charles Avenue

where I would, all wide-eyed, take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the street. I

always preferred the night parades to the daytime parades, especially to the “childrens

parades” because, well, truth to tell, I was getting off on that whiff of menace in the

air. At least, it felt menacing to a nine-year old kid who went to “sisters school,” as

my grandmother would refer to the parochial school I attended. Phalanxes of twirling

carriers, the pungent smell of kerosene wafting in the air, horses rearing up, sirens

wailing, crowds threatening to trample me to death as they lunged for beads flung

from a wobbling float moving by at a good clip—fuck, that was getting this school

boy’s adrenalin pumpin’. You could have your Sunday afternoon parades with boy

scouts inside storybook floats animating Humpty Dumpty taking a fall. Gimme the

night parades with inebriated masked riders threatening to take a fall.

And the daytime parades didn’t have those “ladies” who would come out on

the fire escape across from where my father and I stood waiting for Babylon and

Momus and Hermes and Proteus in skimpy little outfits, even on chilly nights, waving

their silk scarves to an appreciative audience below. There was something funny

(in all senses of funny) about those “ladies” that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

But I always looked forward to seeing them. I will tell you this: they got a lot of beads.

flambeau

night parades

As a child, I used to pester my father, who definitely “preferred not to,”

to take me to the night parades during the carnival season. He would always

grouse that “it’s a school night,” and I would quickly counter, yeah, but I had

already done all my homework. And so we would catch the Canal street street-

car, get off at the Joy theatre stop, and then briskly make our way to the

second hundred block of st. Charles Avenue where I would, all wide-eyed, take in

the sights, sounds, and smells of the street. I always preferred the night parades

to the daytime parades, especially to the “childrens parades” because, well, truth

to tell, I was getting off on that whiff of menace in the air. At least, it felt menacing

to a nine-year old kid who went to “sisters school,” as my grandmother would refer

to the parochial school I attended. phalanxes of twirling flambeau carriers, the pungent smell of kerosene wafting

in the air, horses rearing up, sirens wailing, crowds threatening to trample me to death as they lunged for beads

flung from a wobbling float moving by at a good clip---fuck, that was getting this school boy’s

adrenalin pumpin’. you could have your sunday afternoon parades with boy

scouts inside storybook floats animating Humpty dumpty taking a fall. gimme

the night parades with inebriated masked riders threatening to take a fall.

And the daytime parades didn’t have those “ladies” who would come out

on the fire escape across from where my father and I stood waiting for Babylon

and Momus and Hermes and proteus in skimpy little outfits, even on chilly nights, waving their silk scarves to

an appreciative audience below. there was something funny (in all senses of funny) about those “ladies” that I

couldn’t quite put my finger on. But I always looked forward to seeing them. I will tell you this: they got a lot of

beads.

photograph © Jackson Hill

paraDeS

Desire is the registered trade name of Desire, L.L.C.© 2011 Desire, L.L.C. 608 Baronne StreetNew Orleans, LA 70113 e-mail: tom@tomvariscodesigns.com

Publisher: Tom VariscoArt Direction, Design: Tom Varisco DesignsDesign, Production: Uyen Vu, Gregory GoodPrinting: Garrity PrintingPaper Stock: Accent OpaqueType Face: Trade Gothic

Illustration © Mark Andresen